Russia could boost rare earth metals production sevenfold - minister
MOSCOW. July 1 (Interfax) - Russia could boost production of rare earth metals sevenfold, Industry and Trade Minister Anton Alikhanov said during a meeting of the Federation Council committee on economic policy.
"We have already developed the basic technologies for separating substances for rare and rare earth metals. Thanks to large projects with interested investors, we expect to increase our own production of rare earth metals sevenfold, reducing dependence on imports to a minimum level," Alikhanov said.
Alikhanov also said his ministry was working with the Finance Ministry on tax breaks for rare earth metals. "Tax breaks for rare earth metals are effective, and our colleagues from the Finance Ministry understand this. I hope that we will be able to come up with them and bring them to fruition in the near future," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia planned to ramp up production of new materials based on rare earth metals. To this end, the New Materials and Chemistry national project was launched in 2025, he said. Putin also said that Russia was willing to invite foreign partners for joint work on rare earth metals.
Russia plans to reduce the share of imported rare earth metals to 45% by 2030 from the current 75%, thereby ensuring production at 50,000 tonnes.
Russia's reserves of 29 types of rare metals currently total 658 million tonnes, the Natural Resources Ministry has said. The balance of rare earth metals, as included in the rare metals classifier, totals 28.5 million tonnes. These reserves are sufficient for both the current needs of the Russian economy and for the long term, the ministry has said.
Russia's biggest proven rare and rare-earth metal deposits are Lovozerskoye in the Murmansk region and Tomtor in Yakutia. The biggest lithium deposit is Kolmozerskoye in the Murmansk region.
Lovozersky Mining and Processing Plant is part of Rosatom Nedra, formerly Atomredmetzoloto, which is the state Rosatom corporation's mining division. It is Russia's only miner and processor of loparite ore. Lovozersky Mining and Processing Plant supplies loparite concentrate to the Solikamsk Magnesium Plant (SMZ) , also part of Rosatom's mining division, and which extracts tantalum, niobium and titanium from it and produces a bulk concentrate of other rare earth elements for high-tech industry. SMZ capacity is up to 2,500 tonnes of finished products per year. SMZ produces 100% of Russia's rare earth compounds, niobium and tantalum, 75% of its magnesium and 4% of its titanium in Russia.
Tomtor is one of the world's three biggest rare earth metal deposits and is one of the richest in the world in terms of rare earth metal content in ore, as well as the largest non-producing niobium project. The deposit's Buranny section holds an estimated 11.4 million tonnes of ore containing 0.7 million tonnes of niobium oxide and 1.7 million tonnes of rare earth oxides. Rosneft acquired Vostok Engineering LLC, which holds the Tomtor license, in May.
MMC Norilsk Nickel and Rosatom have formed LLC Polar Lithium to develop the Kolmozerskoye lithium deposit, Russia's largest, in the Murmansk region. The Kolmozerskoye deposit contains 18.9% of Russia's lithium reserves in 75 million tonnes of ore, and is the country's biggest and most promising such deposit. Its probable P1 lithium oxide resources are 152,600 tonnes, tantalum pentoxide 1,215 tonnes and niobium pentoxide 1,485 tonnes.
Rare metals include 14 types, namely lithium, rubidium, cesium, beryllium, scandium, indium, gallium, germanium, zirconium, hafnium, vanadium, niobium, tantalum and rhenium as well as a group of rare earth metals at 15 types. The latter include samarium, yttrium, lutetium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium, praseodymium, thulium, lanthanum, cerium, ytterbium, terbium, neodymium, gadolinium, europium and promethium.
China produces around 70% of the world's rare earth metals and is the biggest exporter of them.
